


Champagne and Sugar Quills

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Minor James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Moony - Freeform, Padfoot - Freeform, Prongs - Freeform, Wormtail - Freeform, lgbt remus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sirius is labelled many things. Traitor. Runaway. Mistake. A perfectly crafted specimen of godly looks, or so he would argue.But, sixth year looms heady with promises and danger, a peculiar girl clutching secrets to her chest like broken dolls.





	1. Chapter 1

He was tucked beneath the bike, his knees propped up on either side of the front wheel. His toes were curled against the cold, his little toe poking through a fresh hole in his sock, a grease stain smeared up his pale ankle. The sound of his clanging rose into the quiet of the Potter’s garage. Bolts and metal against the steel of his wrench, the heavy thumps of dropping parts and the squeak of new ones being fitted. And usually, this was enough to quieten his thoughts, ease his tangle of fizzing nerves, reel back the anger blackening his lungs. Not tonight. 

Rolling out from beneath its monstrous form, Sirius had to turn his face to avoid smacking into an oily jut of metal. Even with the Harley elevated he hadn't given himself much room, and he made a distant reminder to raise it later. The cold of the garage hit him harder, without his mind occupied and through a dusty windowpane, he sought the scythe moon shedding glints of silver into his path. In the late night dim his veins buzzed and crackled with something not unlike danger, something not unlike electricity and a slight form hovered silently by the cracked door, wand tip spilling light in a magnificent ring. Sirius had grown up surrounded by magic, in all forms light and dark, the macabre and wonderous, but it still thrilled the breath from him.

Unfazed and fairly as unsurprised, Sirius greeted the arrival with an arrogant grin. "Miss me so much you had to visit, Sinclair?" His voice was loud enough to carry but not quite so loud as to break the dusk veil layering the air. "You've made quite the trek," he continued, as he snatched up a rag. He managed with little finesse to smear the black grease into a muddied brown all over his hands. So much for clean, he thought. Soundless, she breached the threshold and hoist herself onto the hood of Mr Potter's muggle corvette, the puddle of blue light waning and flaring in time to her steps.

"Fancied an adventure," she said. So, so quiet. Sirius was lucky he even heard, enticed as always by the slow precision of each hush. In that way, Evelyn reminded him most of Remus, of the care they both took. She placed her wand down, allowing him to properly see her, the gem black of her eyes pinned out the window. Copper curls and tawny skin the colour of nutmeg, the familiar tilt of her head that always reminded him of Nemean, his regal barn owl. His grinned slipped. And then fell, the edges withering into a frown.

"Who did that? Evie, look at me, who the hell--"

"Si, please," she interrupted softly, "I didn't come to you for an interrogation and if I wanted one I'd go find James or even, I dunno, Frank and Alice."

Sirius shut his mouth with an audible snap, his teeth seeming to shake with the force. He couldn't take his eyes from her face, the deep purple and blue, so odd his thoughts pleaded for it to be just painted there. But he knew, knew in the way that his own cheek had once been tight and tender with pain. He knew a bruise when he saw one. He knew the brand of someone's rage, be it his mother's scorn, his father's displeasure, an older kid who just wanted to pick a fight and win. "What did you come for, then?" He hadn't meant for his mouth to twist so sharply. "I'll heal it if you let me. But I wouldn't let me point a wand at me, so, there's that."

Evelyn drew her knees to her chest. At once, fierce and flighty, and timid, cowering away. He almost cringed, remembering himself the same way. His thoughts were spiralling but at least not in the usual direction. He didn't know her more than he knew Frank Longbottom in the year above or Marlene Mckinnon, the best friend of Lilly Evans. Trusted her, trusted them but not as confidants. Sirius paused, fingers hovering over his wand. Strictly, they weren't allowed to use magic outside school and then, he didn't think he cared anyway. 

He approached slowly. The distance closed in silence. This close, the moon lit individual strands of her hair like threads of gold, wisps escaping from a braided crown to flutter against her cheeks. He could even feel the soft brush of her breath against his fingers, as he raised his wand. Sirius hadn’t been so soft, so considerate, so aware of his own actions in a long time. Her breath hitched. He heard it. 

Uttering the spell, he watched. Like flower petals curling, the bruise started to shrink, the edges dulling and fading. He knew well that it wasn’t painful but that it was uncomfortable, hot and scatchy, as though there was an itch beneath the healing skin. Evelyn remained still, breath trapped in her throat and fingers woven together, until finally the bruise was gone.

“I guess this is why I came,” she said. And he knew it wasn’t because he had healed her, but he because he understood. “I’m grateful, grudgingly though, so don’t be too arrogant.” She shot him a grin, grabbed her wand and slid from the hood. She moved past him and Sirius followed, sure that he was meant to. 

The grass was dry, thankfully and tickled his ankles. A breeze ruffled through the distant reads framing the manor’s outskirts, tall stalks milky white in the dark, swaying rhythmically back and forth. Everything was softened and hazy, the noises of only crickets and their footsteps, the occasional impatient bird calling for morning. 

“A motorbike, huh?” She said, when he fell into step beside her. He’d grown over the summer and now his steps were long and looping, the kind of easy stride that he’d always envied. “Figured you more for a Mitsubishi, maybe a BMW. Power cars, street racing, rebellion?” Her eyes glittered, alive and haunting. 

He didn’t know what a Mitsubishi was, though he knew BMWs from a muggle magazine. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it but something about a Harley Davidson was alluring and wild. Maybe it was the feeling of his fingers gripping the bars, the kick of the engine, the illegal charms he was going to install to have it blast through the sky. In the end, he told her, “it just felt right.” 

Evelyn smiled with a secret knowledge. Sirius had an incling that she had known the answer before she asked, or that he had passed some sort of unknown test. She said, “can I show something? You’ll have to keep it secret, not from James of course, because hell would sooner freeze over. Or Remus and Peter.”

He laughed before he could help it. A knot of that old, ancient anger loosened. It burned a little lower, like it did when he was with James or helping Mrs Potter bake honey soaked almond cake. He didn’t question it. “Okay, you’ve got me interested, Sinclair,” he said, letting her lead them around the property. He wasn’t surprised she knew her way around. There were things he didn’t understand and the magical world held its share of unexplainable. Evelyn was a little like that, serene in her secrets and always one step ahead. 

It was the impenetrable dark of midnight or one, two, three am. The cold was tangible and his breath was white in the air, frost suspended like a colourless dragon’s flame. Sirius wasn’t fazed, energy and curiosity keeping him hostage. Evelyn was shivering, her hands disappeared into the long sleeves of her plum hoodie. NYC was scrawled across it in white. 

“Okay, alright, here.” She stopped in the middle of a clearing. The nearest thing was a cluster of oaks but even those were nowhere near. Sirius peered up to the sky, past the leafy heads of the trees reaching heavenward, to the jewel moon hanging low. It’s tapered blade tip was close enough to decisive him into thinking he could reach for it, bloody his fingertips and paint the horizon red. Evelyn’s face was glowing and she was grinning, wider than he’d ever seen. Maybe he hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

“Are you ready?” She asked and she took hold of his hands. His skin warmed, burst with the feeling of her graceful touch, the brush of her fingers. She turned his hand upward and placed something cool and smooth in his palm. It was a gemstone, glittering and deep orange, and it quivered and vibrated in his hand. “Don’t close your fingers,” Evelyn warned hastily and a second later, orange flames snaked his arm, a tattoo of fire.

His breath halted. Sirius laughed. Joy and surprise and brilliant fear swelled in his chest and spilled from his mouth. He could hardly believe it. An intricate design coiled and writhed around his wrist and forearm, settling black and then gone. There was a sun inside him. His veins rushed with blood that thundered in his ears. He was going to be burst, unable to contain the feeling. The gem started to spark, the flames crawling over its polished surface. And Evelyn was watching it close, something eager and anxious in her face. It shot upward, twirling and whirring in a ring of fire, lighting the sky in tones of perfect gold and red. 

There came a call from the house and Sirius whirled, reluctant to remove his eyes. A door flung open, banging in the wind and Mrs Potter appeared on the decking. A silken blue nightgown was like sea waves around her plump silhouette. She flicked on the outside light, found him and shouted, “come inside, young man! Before you catch cold!” He smiled at that, this mother of his, not of blood but everything else. 

He turned and found empty air. Evelyn had vanished, as easy as the disperse of flames in the sky. But he caught sight of the the gem, winking up from the grass. “Do not make me count!” Mrs Potter yelled, humour in her voice and he stooped, lifted it carefully and rushed back to the house. The gem was now black and it didn’t buzz with the same magical energy he’d felt before. Silently, as he was ushered to the kitchen for something warm, he vowed to figure it out. 

There was not a mystery that Sirius Black couldn’t solve but he wasn’t so sure that Evelyn Sinclair would be so simple. 


	2. ll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite short but the next one will be longer.

He woke to a morning that was still new. The sky was of pink hues, pale clouds linked like loops of fine silver jewellery, the air misty with the dissipating nighttime chill. And he was angry again. No slow burning, only the continuous thrum, an ache in his bones. 

Sirius hated the early mornings. Too tired to function, he couldn’t hit the Harley until later and too tired to stop them, the memories of 12 Grimmauld Place felt for the cracks and slipped inside. Of dark grandeur and the taste of ash in his mouth, unable to swallow, his throat tight with panic. The burnished frame of a mirror and a glint like a knife. Candle flames writhing upward and the wicks burning low, the darkness dense and tangible and shivering with dread. 

He had always woken early in the Manor. Tardiness and indolence were for the common folk, muggles and blood traitors. The Blacks were above such frivolity. But it was a habit he no longer cared for. Too often, Sirius’ dreams were plagued with nightmares and he woke tired and sore from thrashing in his sheets. Dawn could come and go for all he cared. 

He slid from bed, leaving the blanket strewn halfway across the dark lacquered floorboards. When he’d first came to the Potters, tears staining his cheeks, a bag on his back, they’d offered him his own room. He still had it, down the hall with muggle rock stars on the wall and his clothes exploded across the floor. But James had set up two beds in his spacious room and Sirius often felt better knowing he wasn’t alone. 

As he made silently for the door, he glanced over at James. He was wrapped in his duvet and two blankets, pillows lying every which way, one sepia arm slung over his eyes against the shreds of morning light. He grinned, easing out the door. 

The Potters loved oddities. The halls were crowded with cabinets with brass crows feet and intricately carved wood telling stories; rugs from abroad, worn from age but still handsomely shabby; lampshades that cast murky colours up the walls; trinkets from their young years travelling. Sirius loved it because his mother would’ve hated it.

He arrived at his bedroom and bypassed all his junk. He went to the large sash window, with its chipped white paint and struggled to open it. With a stiff groan, the glass pane warbling, it slid upward and Sirius nearly tumbled straight out from the sudden give. A cold wind snaked inside and ran a pleasant chill down his spine. He clambered out and to the side, sitting himself on the small concrete ledge, back pressed to the wrought iron wrail. 

Sirius had some cigarettes from muggle London and he considered lighting one, or ten, as he flicked on and off his lighter. Eventually, he figured he liked his lungs and settled to reach inside the window, questing fingers landing upon a cassette player. Remus had given him it and he treasured it, even taking it to Hogwarts with him. 

Music thundered in his ears. He let his eyes close. His eyelids were detailed in pink metro-map lines and robin-egg railway tracks. And for a while, he thought of Grimmauld Place. And he considered, maybe it wasn’t a place but rather a thing that seeped into him, a feeling of tightly coiled dread. It had never been his home. 

“It’s five in the bloody morning, mate,” James muttered, poking his tousled head of hair out the window. His golden circular glasses were askew on his nose. “You a’right?” Long-limbed and gangly, he struggled onto the ledge and sat opposite Sirius, their legs intertwined. 

“Just couldn’t sleep,” he said. He felt bad about it, lying by omission but James would only worry. “Maybe I’m nervous for Sixth Year, who knows?” It kind of hit him then, that today was September 1st and he warmed slightly. 

James’ face lit up with a grin. “Oh!” He said, arms flaying, “I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly. Which is to say, arse over tit, last minute studying, pranks galore!” 

“Oi, you tosser,” he joked back. He grinned. “I think you’ll find, funnily enough, that I’ll do swimmingly. I’ll grace majestically through the year, a chick on one arm, Remus on the other while you chase after poor Evans.” 

The mornings stumbled onward and eventually, they were pushing through the crowds gathered on Platform 9 3/4. 


	3. lll

* * *

Sirius felt tiny, staring into the face of his father. Of sloping, high edges and skin so pale it was almost translucent in certain lights. Orion Black looked eeriely like his oldest son but with none of the warmth, and he stood on the platform, cold steel eyes picking his son to shreds. 

His feet were frozen and his body leaden. The crowd parted around them, sweeping furiously onward, wheels of trolleys rattling. Oblivious. He was so, so stupid. How could he have been such a fool? 

“Ah, so he shows his face after all,” his father said, a musical timbre purr, his handsome face impartial. “And what would I owe the pleasure? Surely, he has come to apologise.” Sirius felt like one those pinned butterflies in his father’s office, wings held still, trapped forever in a glass case. 

Where was James? He tried to search for him. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his father. It was the way of Orion to command your attention. 

He was tall. Much taller than Sirius. He wore a cloak of finest black, detailed with painfully intricate needlework up the sleeves. There was nothing fanciful about Orion. Who was he to impress? People naturally tried to please him, seeking approval from someone who would never give it, some hope that he’d deemed you special. 

Once, Sirius had tried. The perfect son, the perfect pureblood heir, the perfect everything. And it had never been a enough. 

“I—“ his father raised a brow and his words died, fell to nothing on his tongue. 

A wicked smile flittered his lips. “Ah, mute as well as stupid,” he spat. His face was full with disgust. “You’re lucky I don’t cut you from the will, leave you to fend on the streets, beg the Potter’s for scraps.” 

He was cornered. Up against the ropes, blow after blow landing against him. Sirius’s father didn’t care, of course, that his son flinched back a step as he moved closer. The expensive smell of his cologne reached Sirius; he felt like he’d choke on it. 

“Insolent child, so much potential thrown away,” Orion hissed. For the benefit of the crowd, his face remained cordial but it was the eyes, so hateful, so brimming with anger. “And for what?” 

“Sirius!” A call came over the roar and his head snapped up. The source was two girls: Lilly Evans, those green cat eyes pinned on Orion, her face of perfect fury and Evelyn Sinclair, grinning with a mechanical dog squirming in her arms. His feet unhooked from the ground. 

He shook his head, eyes pleading them to stay. Stay away. Stay back from his father. Orion tainted things, blackened and ruined them, as easily as wine could forever stain a carpet. And Lilly and Evelyn were the very things his father hated more than his son. 

Orion sneered at their unhalting approach. Sirius hoped his mother stayed gone, wherever she was, probably lecturing poor Reg. “And for what?” His father repeated, “you are like a dog, rolling about in that filth.” He made a pointed looked at the girls. 

They appeared at his side. Lilly was shaking, fear or anger and she sneered right back. It didn’t fit her face like it fit his father, an unpractised gesture that served to amuse Orion more than intimidate. And then she turned her back on him and Sirius nearly laughed. A dismal. 

“Come on,” Evelyn whispered in his ear, “we’ll take you to James. He’s with Remus.” And there was something terribly nervous about her, the glittering of worry in those black, black eyes. Orion was a dangerous man, with power and wealth and the drive to squash anyone in his way. Sirius had to move. He had to get them away from here. He stumbled back, straightened, face hardening to stone. 

“At least I’m not a snake,” he said, biting back on a tremor of old fear, “slithering about in the shadows. A coward.” And he let Evelyn and Lilly lead him away. 

Out of earshot, Lilly heaved a great sigh and slouched in on herself. It had been fear, and anger too, and Sirius knew fear leached the energy from your bones as best as anyone did. She said, in a haughty pureblood imitation, “I don’t like him. Truly distasteful man. Completely ignorant.” 

Evelyn smiled. “Oh! I got you this,” she said in his ear because the noise on the platform had suddenly peaked, “I was tinkering in my father’s workshop and I—I owed you one.” She thrust the squirming dog into his arms and it playfully nipped his fingertips within its silvery jaws. It’s tail beat against the air. 

Sirius was so confused he momentarily forgot all together his father. How was one supposed to react when someone gave them a mechanical dog? “Thanks,” he said and when it didn’t sound sincere, he said it again: “Evelyn, thank you.” She only smiled that serene, secretive smile. 

Lilly huffed a laugh and he looked up as she shook her head, hair a sweeping blanket of red. “He’s going to embarrass himself,” she said. Sirius followed her gaze. He knew instantly the scene about to play out and this, accompanied by the weight of his new pet, made for a brighter morning than he’d thought possible. James came bounding through the crowd, his skin the same warmed colour of sand dunes, his hair an untampered mess. 

“As his wing man, Evans,” Sirius said, “I plead you forgive him afterward.” But James wouldn’t be hindered, his hazel eyes sparkling and bright behind his circular glasses. The thin gold frames caught the pale morning lighting. 

“Lilly!” He shouted. A few heads swivelled. A few hushed whispers. A few knowing laughs. “Lilly-love, hello dearest!” And just like that, James Potter was on one knee, a large candy ring cupped in his palms like an offering to a some timeless god. Lilly Evans might well have been, the way James bowed down at her feet, a dazzling smile on his lips. 

Her ears had gone pink. Evelyn was watching, her lips pressed against the laughter shaking her shoulders. Sirius was watching too, as Lilly ruefully accepted the sweet ruby, muttering for him to _please, you tosser just get up for the love of Merlin!_

As they all filed onto the train, Sirius made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder. In amidst the dwindling crowd, two dark figures were stood beside each other, watching after him. His mother’s face was too far away to make sense of any more than tailored lines and eyes burning furiously into his face. She raised her wand just slightly, a warning tucked somewhere within her fluid grace and her tilted chin. 

Remus toom hold of his wrist, his fingers barely tight enough to tug Sirius through the train doors. He was always so soft. Sirius was grateful, suddenly overcome by his grief and his anger and his relief. He allowed himself to be lead, once again, pressed into Remus’ side. The smell of juniper clung to his friend’s worn jumper, a pale green-blue like sunshine through a leafy canopy and this time Sirius didn’t think he’d choke. He thought he might become part of it and let it permeate his skin. 

“You know,” said Remus, quiet and careful. “You know.” And that was all he said, giving Sirius’ wrist a brief, comforting squeeze. 

____________________

Hogwarts Castle was like something from a fairytale, of rising spires of ancient stone and reaching towers climbing through the clouds. September 1st—to the song of cold wind and voices layered over one another—the students flooded from the train.

Sirius shivered, as the clammy cold dre a shiver across his skin, his eyes finding the castle instantly. Veiled in silvery haze mist, the windows caught the moonlight and shifted in a blink from glass panes to the white of winking eyes. Hogwarts felt like home.

Behind him, Peter Pettigrew stumbled over his untied laces and James Potter jostled a grinning Remus Lupin out the door, sending all three a tumble of limbs into his back. He laughed. It was a carefree thing, tugged loose without thought, without the concern of his mother’s eyes burning across the sea of parents left on the platform, the flick of her wand. 

On the Hogsmeade platform, students whirled in a sea of black cloaks. Hagrid called across the racket for first years, his torch cutting a yellow-white beam through the dark and casting his silhouette even bigger than usual. 

“I miss riding the boats,” said Remus, still grinning that grin of his that meant he’d only moments before told an inappropriate joke. “Not a fan of the water, though.” He swept onward and the rest of them followed. 

The noise of them was deaf to Sirius but around him, heads turned and eyes tracked them curiously. It was a wondrous thing, those four boys and their unshakable bond, their rambunctious racket. Even that Prefect Lupin was a louder thing with them, what a bad influence they were, what a thing no one ever heard the way his mouth could twist even gospel into something filthy and fabulous. 

They took the carriages back to school, and Sirius pretended he couldn’t see the Thestrals, sinuous and black, their great leathery wings folded against its body. That night, they laughed, laughed, laughed and the Great Hall welcomed them as always. 

There was no mention of darkness, of rising forces, of a mounting trouble. But it lurked. Sirius fell asleep thinking about two things: Evelyn’s little dog that lay at the foot of his bed, whistling a snore from someplace in its metal chest, and what a war would mean for Hogwarts, for Britain, for him and his stupid, brilliant friends. And when he fell into a fitful sleep he dreamed a nightmare, a battlefield of corpses, his best mates dead and gone, him alone in the dark. 

But it was sixth year and he was going to be happy, scrounge together every good thing if he had to. He was thankful he even fell asleep at all. 


End file.
